I grew up on Zelazny, find his stuff really approachable. LORD OF LIGHT is perhaps the exception, it starts late in the story and then goes back to fill you in and there's a lot to take in at once, but it's well worht the trouble.
Banks is a different story. He really keeps the characters at arm's length and his books can be a bit... I dunno, cold, in some ways. They're interesting characters, but you have to work to understand them and empathize with them. I think that holds for his SF stuff, mean, his 'ordinary' fiction is much more in-POV. It takes some work, but he's become one of my new favourites.
Banks' culture novels aren't world-building so much as society building--literally. Most of the Culture novels examine some aspect of colonialism. If you've read Ursula LeGuin's SF (LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS) you can see a direct antecedent to Banks' work, rather than your Nivens and Heinleins and Asimovs.
I haven't read EXCESSION but I've heard that it's a difficult place to start reading Banks--I recommend CONSIDER PHLEBAS or THE PLAYER OF GAMES. My favourite is USE OF WEAPONS, but I don't think it's a good starter, either.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2008-09-02 10:38 am (UTC)I grew up on Zelazny, find his stuff really approachable. LORD OF LIGHT is perhaps the exception, it starts late in the story and then goes back to fill you in and there's a lot to take in at once, but it's well worht the trouble.
Banks is a different story. He really keeps the characters at arm's length and his books can be a bit... I dunno, cold, in some ways. They're interesting characters, but you have to work to understand them and empathize with them. I think that holds for his SF stuff, mean, his 'ordinary' fiction is much more in-POV. It takes some work, but he's become one of my new favourites.
Banks' culture novels aren't world-building so much as society building--literally. Most of the Culture novels examine some aspect of colonialism. If you've read Ursula LeGuin's SF (LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS) you can see a direct antecedent to Banks' work, rather than your Nivens and Heinleins and Asimovs.
I haven't read EXCESSION but I've heard that it's a difficult place to start reading Banks--I recommend CONSIDER PHLEBAS or THE PLAYER OF GAMES. My favourite is USE OF WEAPONS, but I don't think it's a good starter, either.
-- JF